British pianist Paul Lewis continues his landmark series of Beethoven concerts at Middlebury College Oct. 28
MIDDLEBURY, Vt. - This fall, British pianist Paul Lewis continues his ongoing project - to perform the complete cycle of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas at Middlebury College. His latest recital begins at 8 p.m., Friday, Oct. 28, in the Concert Hall at the Center for the Arts.
This is the second of eight concerts Lewis plans for Middlebury. The first was in February. Two additional concerts are scheduled this season for March 16 and May 12, 2006.
The Oct. 28 program will feature Sonata no. 10 in G Major, no. 11 in B-flat Major, no. 9 in E Major, and no. 21 in C Major, opus 53, “Waldstein.”
Lewis, one of the most sought-after classical artists of his generation, is presently immersed in the Beethoven project. Through 2007, the Beethoven sonatas will be the focus of his concerts scheduled for venues throughout the United Kingdom, Australia and Europe. Middlebury is his main recital stop in the United States this season with additional North American concerts in San Francisco and Vancouver, British Columbia. Lewis is also recording the complete Beethoven cycle for the classical music label Harmonia Mundi.
The intense focus is not new to Lewis, who produced a similar effort several years ago with the Schubert piano sonata series. In 2003 his Schubert work won him both the South Bank Show Classical Music Award and the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Instrumentalist of the Year Award. His Schubert sonata recordings on the Harmonia Mundi label received great acclaim with the first release winning the prestigious Diapason d’Or Choc de L’Année 2002 award in France.
Lewis attended the Chetham School of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, studying with Ryszard Bakst and Joan Havill. He later received regular coaching from Alfred Brendel. By 1999, Lewis was featured in BBC’s inaugural “New Generation Artists” program. From 2000-2002, he was a professor of piano at London’s Royal Academy of Music. In 2001-2002, he and the Leopold String Trio were selected by Wigmore Hall for the prestigious European Concert Halls Organization’s “Rising Stars” program, an honor that led to more debut recitals in New York, Vienna, Amsterdam and Brussels.
Lewis has appeared with a host of classical music artists, including Yo-Yo Ma, Ernst Kovacic, Katherine Gowers and Adrian Brendel. He has performed concertos with many leading orchestras and with conductors such as Gerard Schwarz, Vassily Sinaisky and Mark Elder.
